IBM is celebrating 100 years - a century of achievements that have changed the world. Across the decades, IBM has had a greater impact on business than any other company. IBM’s tradition of innovation is reflected by its leadership patent portfolio. For the past 18 years, IBM has received more U.S. patents than any other company, holding more than 40,000 patents worldwide. And IBM’s history of outstanding business performance and its strong balance sheet virtually define “blue chip company.”

A wonderful video explores how computers came to “Think” and ultimately change the world. Another fascinating video takes you through IBM’s 100 years of achievements. In 1913, IBM applies the Hollerith tabulating machine to industry for the first time. In 1930, IBM receives its first patent for a traffic signal timing system. In 1939, IBM demonstrates an early form of email at the New York World’s Fair. In 1951, the IBM 701 becomes the world’s first mass-produced electronic computer. IBM’s Deep Blue defeats the world chess champion in 1997. On and on . . .

A host of innovations such as the SABRE airline reservation system, the IBM PC, the invention of DRAM and RISC and IBM’s embrace of Linux helped shape the second half of the 20th century. In 1974, IBM created networking with System Networking Architecture (SNA), the first complete protocol stack for interconnecting computers.

Fast forward to 2011, and TCP/IP and Ethernet have become the de facto means for global business networking. And, IBM's acquisition of BLADE Network Technologies now signals IBM’s reentry into networking as a system networking innovator just as it turns 100 years young!

What will the next 100 years bring? It’s easy to predict computers that that use 10x less power and run 1,000 times faster. Systems are on the horizon that can sequence the human genome and systems that can think like you. Networks can be expected to become ever more virtual. Innovations like the IEEE’s 802.1Qbg Ethernet Virtual Bridging (EVB) standard are being championed by great minds such as IBM’s Renato Recio and Vijoy Pandey to equip system networks with the intelligence to anticipate the movement of Virtual Machines anywhere and everywhere in the enterprise.

The employees of IBM System Networking have gotten off to a great start.

What a momentous time for the accomplished employees coming into IBM through the BLADE Network Technologies acquisition along with networking stars within the IBM company who together formed the System Networking business to become part of IBM’s second century of innovation!

Last year, I wrote about the Information Technology (IT) related issues that keep the many CIOs I have met around the world awake at night. With 2010 behind us now, I thought it might be interesting to reflect on how IBM System Networking addressed for the issues/ pain points our customers spoke about.

1. An increasing reliance in IT to support the growing needs of the business has made scalability a major concern for CIOs. How do you scale the IT infrastructure in a cost effective manner to keep pace with the growing demands of the business? In 2010, CIOs saw dramatic increases in I/O driven by virtualization, high performance computing, video and other bandwidth-intensive uses and frequently chose IBM System Networking’s 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches to keep pace with this growth. IBM System Networking also delivered a single-chip 40 Gigabit Ethernet switch to bring terabit scale to the data center network.

2. More physical IT infrastructure is impacting data center space, power and cooling. This raises concerns about density – being able to pack more compute and storage capacity per square foot of raised floor so as to get the maximum return on data center building infrastructure. IBM System Networking introduced top-of-rack switches such as our IBM BNT RackSwitch G8052 and IBM BNT RackSwitch G8264 to enable the enterprises to build very high-density data center networks with four main characteristics – low latency, lossless, low cost, and low power.

3. With so much capital being invested in IT infrastructure, the question of maximizing utilization of this infrastructure is also top-of-mind. In the airline business they call this “yield management.” In the hospitality business, they call it “occupancy rates.” Innovations such as IBM System Networking’s VMready with Virtual Vision ensure that customers can virtualize their server infrastructure while maximizing virtual machine security, high availability, and mobility.

5. An increasing amount of sensitive information about businesses (customer and supplier information, costs and prices, contracts, sensitive intellectual property information, etc.), is going online. Protecting such information from getting in the wrong hands is of paramount importance and so security is very high on the CIO’s agenda. Security is increasingly required as an “embedded” characteristic of data center networks. IBM System Networking iFlow Director software enables the creation of wire-speed network security infrastructure and is rapidly gaining momentum in the market place.

6. And finally, more now than ever before, customers are very sensitive to total cost of ownership (TCO) of their IT infrastructure. IBM System Networking delivers a better end-to-end TCO to its customers that encompasses the compute, storage, and network elements of the IT infrastructure. Do a quick calculation on your cost & power savings with our TCO calculator.

I believe our industry indeed made significant progress in 2010 in helping CIOs address the issues that keep them awake at night. And, I am proud that IBM System Networking continues to play a key role in addressing these critical pain points.

The value proposition for IBM System Networking is to provide the essential network connectivity solutions under the IBM brand to connect servers to servers, servers to storage and storage to storage. IBM System Networking offers a compelling alternative for customers seeking more efficient data centers with the greatest business value and lowest total cost of ownership for their data center networks.

System networking plays a critical role in customers’ server and storage buying decisions. Today, many customers are deploying IT infrastructure on an unprecedented scale – data centers are expanding from 5,000 to 50,000 and 100,000 servers. For such scale-out architectures, the system network plays a critical role. Consider density; if it requires three data centers to house 5,000 servers, how many data centers will it take to house 50,000 servers? The answer better not be 30! So, the system network must deliver the high-density networking required to support highly consolidated and massively virtualized data center infrastructures.

If you are a CIO undertaking an order of magnitude increase in infrastructure, you want to increase utilization through virtualization, which requires the system network to be virtualization aware. And of course, the system network is vital to the security of this infrastructure.

If you have an order of magnitude increase in infrastructure, much of the functionality required to solve deployment and management issues can reside on data center switches implemented within the system network.

As companies take their businesses online, rapid and accurate business intelligence becomes ever more critical, which requires the system network for fast transport of information to and from analytic engines.

If you are employing an order of magnitude more infrastructure, total cost of ownership is important, and companies spend 15 to 20% of their investment in infrastructure on the network.

To address CIO’s key strategic issues of scaling, density, utilization/virtualization, security, data management and cost ownership, system networking is the common thread. IBM is an incredibly reputable server and storage vendor, and you can see the critical role the network plays.